Following World War II, the United States pumped $13 billion (that's about $130 billion in today's dollars) into Europe to help rebuild a continent ravaged by war, an initiative named after Secretary of State George Marshall. Now, activist and U2 frontman Bono thinks the U.S. should do the same with a "modern Marshall Plan" in Africa, as he laid out in an essay published Monday evening on Medium:
To succeed, [the modern Marshall Plan] would have to employ a bunch of means all at once — ganging up on the problems of extreme poverty and unequal opportunity. Aid is one of those means — an essential one. Our ultimate goal is the end of aid — growing economies, shared prosperity, self-sufficiency. But the way we're going to get there — if you can handle the cognitive dissonance — is actually to increase the aid, for now, to the countries that need it the most. The poorest countries get only a small share, 30 percent, of the aid that the world provides. Investing foreign funds can leverage domestic funds to improve basic health services and education for the poorest citizens, especially women and girls. [Medium]
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